If you thought that all male orthodox Jews kept their sideburns long, had their Johnsons circumcised and had skin that was the color of peaches – then this French/Israeli co-production will have made you guessed wrong. Radu Milhaileanu sheds light into a subject matter that has nothing to do with Palestine resentment – Live & Become speaks about the life-altering experiences only it trivializes such live and learn events by unnecessarily tugging away at the emotions and offering itself in a character that is lesson-friendly.
Becoming familiar with one’s surroundings is especially difficult when you’re all alone in the world and you’re all but 8 years of age. Based on the factual events that took place in 1986 – where famine drove thousands of Ethiopians from desert land to a greener hope. Contextualized with episodes that places the viewer in the surroundings of the boy, the film is ultimately about the child passing from a desperate mother’s plea for a better life into another loving mother’s arms defending her black sheep against the cruel community. This saga, filled with symbolic references, covers the entire growth period of the child who must come to grips with his complicated past and his even more difficult future.
Conceived as a film that both condemns and praises the treatment of these unwanted new additions to the Israeli community, Milhaileanu counts on hunger strike scenes at the family dinner table and shots of a child choosing a floor over a bed to a teenager’s first love and the whole racism card issue to describe the arduous task of adapting to a life that is foreign. This coming-of-age journey comes across as facile – it’ll satisfy some adult filmgoer’s needs for a good artificial weep – but audiences demanding more tact, will feel that this unnecessarily aims for the heart without really trying.
Counting on the volatile nature of growing up with an inner turmoil, the interactions between characters sometimes offer fruitful looks into adopted child struggle, but in other moments there is slightly a slightly manufactured feel and is felt with all 3 boys playing the role of the child protagonist. Scripted with Alain-Michel Blanc, the narrative discourse offers a full circle loop with a tack-on happy ending for good measure – making Live & Become a cliché-filled story and unmoving dedication to this specific immigrant experience.
Reviewed November 2nd 2005.
